First day of School, and First Day with the new Suit

I set my new alarm for 6:00 and it dutifully rang, thank goodness. At 6:01, Yafei knocked on my door because she had no hot water. Our set-up in the shower is a little different than at home -- a not too big tank sits on top of the shower stall which has one of those hand held doohickeys, but no tub or shower head. The tank is allegedly heated by turning on an electric switch. Poor Y's doesn't work. She decided to tough it out and take a cold shower, even though I offered to let her use mine when I was done. The bathroom is somewhat rustic shall we say, and rusty, too come to think of it. I did shower and discovered the stall leaks all over the floor. Hmmm.

Breakfast was in the cafeteria on the ground floor. We were issued meal cards which we swipe across an electronic device, But imagine this is from a certain Orwell book in terms of its decor. Sharon High's cafeteria is tre moderne in comparison. I had a plain ole Chinese bun and a hard boiled egg and tea. It was fine. The food here is pretty good and I am a little worn out from the banqueting anyway.

We met the kids at 7:30 and they were divided up into crowded classrooms of 50 or so students. They had classes like physics and English with them, and then we met for their Chinese class. They fared pretty well there, and the text they are using the same one from Boston Language Institute's where I took my few lessons.

This school system has 5 schools. The facility where we are is one of the oldest, I believe. I need to write down some data about it. We get the use of our own large class and meeting room while we are here. It has desks, an actual chalk board, and an increasingly popular ping pong table.

After the lessons, the entire school lined up in the athletic area outside, lined up in double lines, mind you, and straight ones, too. Before we knew it, each of us from Sharon, including the kids had to step up in front of the microphone and say something. This was news to us. I got through introducing myself in Chinese, saying I taught History and please excuse my little Mandarin. Kids said their Chinese names, English names and their ages, all in Mandarin. George said words of welcome in English. Yafei looked in control of herself and said a ton of things in Mandarin. We all received Chinese dictionaries. Including Yafei. George is thoughtfully donating his to our classroom here at the Gaoxin High School. I guess he won't be needing it.

Changing plans seems to be the norm here , which I find surprising. We are given a schedule, say, and then we are told 15 minutes or so before the change that something else is going to happen. For example, the kids are going to perform in front of the whole school tomorrow at an assembly. They are going to sing "Edelweiss" in Chinese (??) Oh yeah, and I will play the piano. I am still unclear about how this came about. I asked for music once I got this little piece of news, and they gave me a piece of paper with Chinese text and numbers on it. I had to ask for a Western staff. "Ohh, the thing with five lines on it!" Yes, please. I got half of the score with no bass. I want to sit in front of the piano and pencil in the chord changes because I am just ever so slightly nervous about this whole thing. Too bad the piano is scheduled all day tomorrow. AAAH.

We also all went to lunch, kids included, at a fancy restaurant with Madame Jiao and Shang again. No flat screen with Chinese action movie, however. We all sat, 15 of us, at a huge round table with a giant lazy susan in a fancy private dining room. It was like King Arthur meets Jackie Chan and the Last Emperor or something. There were endless starters, toasts and the main event was Peking Duck and fish head. Madame J sat me down next to her -- she speaks no English whatsoever -- and kept putting food on my plate. She toasted me numerous times with Peach nectar in a brandy snifter. Kids had fun mixing juices together and swirling their brandy snifters around. They mostly paid attention to the speeches and discussion.

Shang said something I really liked about how important education was. But what he said specifically was that one should read many books, make friends, and travel, and that is how one becomes educated. This is of course what has worked for me. I hope the Sharon kids got some of this. The discipline and true talent of the Chinese students in this school is dawning on them, and it will be interesting to see what they make of all this in the end.

I ate less than the night before, but did have to chomp some fish head. I thought of how my cat Sister would have liked it.

And I haven't even gotten to the afternoon where we visited the international campus, played ping pong in a giant room with several tables, and a beautiful piano was unveiled in a very fancy music room. This was all well and good until the head of that school pointed at the piano and then at me. The huddled masses got real American music, "Summertime." I wish I understood everything Yafei says in Chinese.

To bed. More anon.